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Comment by hshshshshsh | Hacker News Reader

That's just your ego talking. The human race will be just fine with or without you raising kids. Our great great ancestor monkeys and fishes didn't raise their children to push their species to centuries further. They just existed and it's what they do as part of their nature. Trying to project meaning to it just ego at play.

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Trying desperately not to project meaning into it, running from your ego... is still just the ego talking, but now through the denial of it, such is the fundamental nature of the ego for the human.

True overcoming of the ego is where it doesn't even bother you if things have meaning or not, since there is no separation between your body and the rest of the world. True overcoming of ego is indistriguishable from true giving-in to ego. Is the ultimate act of letting go.

After this you can choose to raise kids, choose to pursue a career in tech and a hobby in arts. Just because it won't matter you will do it, because now you can choose meaning if you wish. Just because it doesn't matter it does matter. You become the creator.

How do I be free? I have tasted the freedom for a short time but I can't sustain it. A new ego has been formed after seeing through the old ego. And it also claims to be free of ego.

I'm not a guide, just a messenger. I'm also just a person.

I can't tell you how you go about your pursuit of freedom, or the pursuit of what it means to live free.

I can tell you what it means to me. I'm free when I can choose everyday to pursue what it means to live free. I'm also free when I choose the limitations in this pursuit, because I don't want the anxiety of the hyperpositive when everything is possible. I'm also free when I consider the other, my kin and when I choose to serve them. I'm also free when I ask for strength to change the things in my life that I can, and for wisdom to accept those things I can't change.

Wish you luck in your journey.

Well put! I would add that probably nobody achieves this consistently, it's a lifetime practice. So coping strategies like I proposed her can still be useful in the chaos of daily life.

I agree but I'd add that there is nothing to fix. Life is just tough and sometimes you cry because it hurts, and sometimes it fills you with joy and you rejoice. Rinse and repeat until you time has passed and it's now our descendants turn in this world.

Maybe it's clearer in the form of a question: how are you completely sure you are NOT enlightened if you don't know what it is to be enlightened?

Because you don't just hurt, you suffer. Across the spiritual spectrum people report that "enlightenment" brings a radical reduction or elimination of self-inflicted suffering, and a profound inner peace. This jives with my limited experience of it as well.

Someone kicks you in the shin, it causes pain. If it triggers a whole internal loop of fear and worry and anger and revenge and trauma and suffering, then you've hit upon your ego which you're unable to let go of. If your internal experience isn't sticky, then before you know it, the pain has dissipated and you're on to whatever the next present moment brings.

That internal loop is what there is to "fix".

Are you able to sustain that? Or was this one off experiences?

It was self-sustaining for months, until I fell off the horse due to being unable to eat (broken jaw). If you find some equanimity in this life you can rest assured that peace will be tested frequently :)

> That internal loop is what there is to "fix".

Brilliant!

And this is why there is nothing to fix, because it doesn't change anything external. If it doesn't change anything external, if it's only an internal loop, it's the same as the ascetic attitude that Nietzsche describes. You can beat yourself until you're in line with your expectations for your ego, or you change your whole relationship with yourself, more accepting of your flaws and more trusting that you are able to overcome this internal loop eventually, but not today.

Actually, in a rare exception this isn't my ego for once. I'm well aware my specific kids don't have any special cosmic significance or even just special significance to the human race. However, continuing humanity does seem at least an interesting thing to do and it's a collective effort. It's also best entered into consciously as a human since you can have far more impact on other humans and animals than a fish can. It's also definitely challenging to raise kids, so it's real work I'm doing.

Thinking about continuing humanity is a coping strategy and I can assure you it's more effective than HN rationality when my kid is screaming about their cheerios etc

No they won't. The human race will literally put you in a tiny cage if you don't raise kids how they approve. It makes them seethe, rage, and their skin boil, they do not feel at all fine and they have invented entire apparatus to make sure people who do not raise children as they approve are punished harshly.

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